China won its first gold medals of the Sochi Olympics on Thursday night, extending to a dozen years its dominance of the women’s 500-meter short-track skating event and also reaching into the unfamiliar realm of 1,000-meters speed skating.

Zhang Hong’s medal in the ladies’ 1,000 meters was the more surprising win, as China had never won a gold in the event. The 25-year-old from Heilongjiang also hasn’t got on the podium at World Single Distances Championships, finishing seventh in the flagship speed-skating competition in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

But she produced a stunning race in Sochi’s Adler Arena, finishing in 1 minute, 14.02 seconds, a healthy 0.67 seconds ahead of silver medalist Ireen Wust, a world champion skater and now five-time Olympic medalist from the Netherlands. Another Dutchwoman, Margot Boer, was third.

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The Dutch have long been a leading force in this event, along with the Germans and North Americans. The last time a Chinese woman won an Olympic medal in the 1,000 meters was in 1994, when Ye Qiaobo won bronze in Lillehammer, Norway. Her time was 1 minute, 20.22 seconds.

Zhang had to endure a long wait Thursday night as one of the earlier racers, setting off in the seventh pairing out of 18 with Christine Nesbitt of Canada, the gold medalist from the 2010 Games in Vancouver. All Zhang, dressed in the yellow tracksuit of China, could do was nervously watch as subsequent races came and went.

Some kept pace with her time over the first half of the race, including 500-meter gold medalist Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea and world-record holder Brittany Bowe of the U.S., but none could match Zhang’s speed over the distance. When the last race finished, she leapt in the air and gave her Dutch opponent a quick hug.

“I don’t think anybody could have understood how I felt waiting,” the International Skating Union quoted Zhang as saying afterward.

China’s gold in the 500-meter short-track was less of a surprise. The country’s gold-medal run in this event stretches back to the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. The gold medalist, though, was something of a shock.

Fan Kexin was the fastest in the heats and, in the absence of Olympic champion Wang Meng because of injury, China’s top Sochi medal hope in short-track skating. But Fan was cleared out of the competition in the semifinals after catching her skate and crashing. Liu Qiuhong also failed to qualify for the final, leaving Li Jianrou as China’s only hope.

Li Jianrou during the medals ceremony, Thursday.

Associated Press

The final race descended into crash-filled chaos after Elise Christie of Great Britain fell and took out 2010 bronze medalist Arianna Fontana of Italy and South Korea’s Park Seung-hi, which cleared the way for Li’s run to gold. Christie crossed the line second but was penalized for her role in the crash and dropped to fourth place.

Friday morning, animated GIFs of Li’s dramatic win were ricocheting around Chinese social-media sites, with some Internet users joking that the Chinese government must have hired Christie to clear the way.

“This British skater has to have been sent by the motherland. Shoveling under Italy and tearing down the Korean. Awesome!” wrote one user of Sina Corp.’s Weibo microblogging service.

The victories brought China Central Television’s color commentator, former short-track Olympic champion Yang Yang, to the verge of tears. “We were lucky, we have to be honest and admit that. But to persist these past four years and [perform] under such huge pressure, we should congratulate them,” she said (in Chinese).

Thursday’s golds bumped China up to eighth on the Sochi medal table, one spot below Russia, though the host nation has 11 medals in total against China’s three. China’s other medal also came in short-track skating, with Han Tianyu taking silver in the men’s 1,500-meter final.

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